Hooray! Anti-Street Harassment Successes of 2010

This was a big year for anti-street harassment activism! I spent a few hours this morning reflecting on it all and I am amazed. Thank you to the thousands of people who are tackling this issue around the world, including by sharing your stories. You are making a difference.

In this (lengthy) post, I’m highlighting some of the heroes who stood up to harassers, a few of the substantial societal shift successes, several new anti-harassment campaigns, various creative initiatives to raise awareness about street harassment, and more.

Elizabeth Owens in Washington, DC, fought back against men who were harassing her and her friends by yelling, “EWWWW” and making hand gestures. The men were surprised and silenced.

Anonymous in New York City reported a delivery truck harasser and was told by the company that the harasser was sent home from work that day and will have to attend anti-harassment meetings with the Human Resources representative and the Director of Operations.

Anonymous in Jakarta, Indonesia, told the harassers in her new neighborhood that she did not like that kind of treatment and that she would report them to their bosses if they continued. They apologized and have never harassed her again.

Tired of Being Harassed in Arlington, VA, shared many stories in which she stood up to street harassers, including standing up to a group of men who called her inappropriate names as she walked to work.

This was a really big year for concrete outcomes in the quest to make street harassment socially unacceptable, with action occuring in the UK, Egypt, Mauritius, USA, and internationally via the United Nations.

Also in September, the Mauritian Gender Equality, Child Development and Family Welfare Minister, Ms. Sheilabai Bappoo, released a booklet titled “Breaking the Silence on Sexual Harassment in Public Transport,” to encourage women to speak out and for people to help women who are most vulnerable to this violence (such as young or poor women who must take public transportation).

An op-ed that journalist Elizabeth Mendez Berry wrote in the fall of 2010 led to the first ever city council hearing on street harassment in New York City in late October! Now the city is pursuing the first ever city-wide street harassment study. More than 200 media outlets covered the story.

In November, phone tools came out that allow people to report street harassers. The two tools are the HollaBack phone app and HarassMap in Egypt. Hundreds of media outlets covered these stories.

In Egypt, right now you can go to a movie theater and watch a film that addresses street harassment!

New Campaigns:

Illustrating the global scope of this problem, several new anti-street harassment campaigns started in countries like the UK, Jordan, Yemen, and Bangladesh.

In Wales, the Welsh government launched two relevant campaigns, the “One Step Too Far” Campaign that illustrates the slippery slope between harmless interactions and harassment in public places, and Stop Blame, a campaign against victim blaming survivors of rape and harassment.

In Scotland, the Scottish Government and Rape Crisis Scotland launched a television advertisement and online campaign called Not Ever, which focuses on how women are not to blame for rape and harassment because of what they wear.

Creative Initiatives:

I loved all the creativity this year in address street harassment and raising awareness on and offline about its pervasiveness and unacceptability.

While a lot of the work that I and HollaBack folks do is online, we were able to get offline quite a bit this year to talk to people about street harassment and give presentations at major conferences.

I was able to give 16 street harassment-related talks across the US, including, Alaska, California, Iowa, New York and Utah! (I’ll be speaking in California, Illinois, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin across the next few weeks)

HollaBack NYC and DC gave many presentations in their regions as did the London Anti-Street Harassment Campaign

Between HollaBack founders and myself, we presented about street harassment at several major conferences in the US and abroad, including:

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